A few words with ... Steven Tyler, Jon Glaser and Michael Cudlitz

Q: How much did your first-year experience sell you on the idea of returning to "American Idol"?

A: It was a whole year of, "What?" I was living in L.A., and it was pretty amazing. The whole thing to me was over the top, which is what I live for. I'm addicted to adrenaline anyway, so this was new, fertile ground. All I had to do was judge what I heard. It was a long, hard time ... but in the end, it was great. It was a really great experience for me.

Q: Since you and Jennifer Lopez started on "American Idol" at the same time, how's your relationship with her been?

A: I saw J. Lo in a movie called "The Back-up Plan." I saw something in her, playing that part with compassion and loving that guy and chasing after him. And I fell in love with her. I sit next to her, and she makes me blush, then I've gotta make her blush; the stuff we say to each other off-camera could be a show in and of itself. I can't tell you what we say, but it's very tongue-in-cheek.

Q: How do you think the two of you have meshed with fellow judge Randy Jackson?

A: Well, he's the Grand Facilitator. He'll wind stuff up, then he'll hand it to me, then I'll hand it to J. Lo. She's very nurturing, and he's right to the point, and I can be funny and nurturing as well. We work off of each other. I can tell when Randy's out of steam and I'll jump in -- and when I'm out of steam, J. Lo jumps in. If your foot falls off the pedal, the other one's right there.

A: It was originally an idea that I had pre-Conan (O'Brien, for whom he wrote). I ended up doing (it) on Conan. He was an impressionist in witness protection and still wants to perform, and his voice was altered and the joke was all of the impressions sounded the same.

Q: How will the third season be different, and what role does Janeane Garofalo play?

A: The third season will be different in several ways. A lot of characters from the second season are gone, either by being killed or actors moving on. Jon gets a life coach. Janeane plays the head of the network.

Q: Did you ever expect a stand-up bit would go to a show and now become a DVD set?

A: I had no idea. When I was first pitching the show, I kind of felt, "How do we not exhaust the premise?" The first season was all about this bumbling hit man and he can't seem to kill this guy, and the second season became about adding more of a real tough guy hit man. (The DVDs) have a couple of commentary tracks on it, one just me talking about it. I included a sort of a demo when I was pitching the show to these guys.

Q: Do you find it odd -- a live-action show on a cable station devoted to animation?

A: One of the great things about Adult Swim is it allows these weird, inventive ideas to exist in both live action and animation.

Q: Now that your gay LAPD character, Officer John Cooper, is sharing his squad car with Officer Jessica Tang (Lucy Liu), one supposes there will be no sexual tension, right?

A: No sexual tension but who knows?

Q: What? Is John flexible on that subject?

A: John's always flexible. John takes yoga. This is not to mislead or lead anyone in any direction, but I think the show is true to life. John was married before, so I don't know you can't necessarily say yea or nay to anything on our show.

Q: Has John not made a final decision on his lifestyle?

A: No, he's gay. He's living life as a gay man, but he definitely understands and appreciates women, as most men do.

Q: John doesn't often come up in discussions of gay TV characters. How do you feel about that?

A: You look at the gay community and the gay media, and you look at the shows they talk about, no. But I would argue that it is gay media, not mainstream, majority gay people. I'm proud of what we're doing with him, whether the gay community or the media embraces it or not. We're making headway. I'm not Kurt on "Glee"; I'll never be Kurt on "Glee." And I think John Cooper is very happy about that.

Q: Speaking of singing and dancing, would you ever do "Dancing With the Stars"?

A: Somebody brought that up today. You want to see a car wreck, put me on there.